FOR those who haven’t experienced enough heartbreak in the last few days, there is this well-done but very sad documentary on the plight of homeless children who live in a Romanian subway station.

They’re among the products of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s ill-fated campaign to increase the number of workers by outlawing contraception and abortion.

The country’s economy collapsed along with Ceausescu’s regime, leaving something like 20,000 children living on the streets, barely helped by the cash-strapped government.

Director Edet Belzberg focuses on a pack of five feral youths living in the subway in Bucharest’s ironically named Victory Plaza. Their leader, 16-year-old Cristina, escaped from an orphanage and insane asylum, and is so street-tough, she’s barely recognizable as a girl.

The saddest, a 14-year-old girl named Macarena, sells herself so she – like many of the other kids – can get high on paint fumes.

All of them sleep on pieces of cardboard, begging from well-heeled commuters and facing regular beatings at the hands of other street kids.

Filmed with handheld cameras in vérité style without any narration, “Children Underground” is a powerful piece of filmmaking that won the jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.